Wuthering Heights, by Jane Eyre

Reviews of the screening of Wuthering Heights 2011 at the BFI London Film Festival are appearing:

Wuthering Heights' most successful aspect is the eponymous place itself. Whereas previous versions could easily have been re-titled 'Cathy and Heathcliff', Arnold's new version is very much about Wuthering Heights itself, rather than simply being set there. Winds blow, rains lash down and the nights are as black as the inside of a buried corpse. The film isn't just earthy - it is muddy and soiled. Arnold is fantastic at conveying a tactile world of rough edges - wood grain, bracken and rock - a gritty world inhabited by moths, beetles and watched over by hovering birds of prey.
Despite Brontë's passionate original text, the film itself almost refuses to present passion. There are no startling scenes which will really move you, and Arnold has perhaps consciously downplayed the text's melodrama. If this was her aim, then she has succeeded. Her Wuthering Heights is a film which will certainly beguile and interest, and demands at least one revisit - given the magnitude of any adaptation's task, perhaps that is enough. (John Bleasdale in CineVue)

[T]he most striking element of Wuthering Heights is the sound design. There's no score at all; events are solely accompanied by the rush of the wind blowing across the sparse Yorkshire hills. It’s a lonely soundtrack, which immerses you completely in the environment, weathered by the relentless onslaught of nature.
The script, sound and cast combine to make a spectacular production that channels the animalistic emotions of Brontë’s novel. You’ll be so caught up in the language, the look, and the wild lust of it all, that any memories of Timothy Dalton or Ralph Fiennes in long expensive coats will swiftly disappear; this costume drama could easily have taken place last Tuesday. Rarely before has a period tale felt so modern. (Ivan Radford in I-Flicks)

Tola Onaguga in The Guardian's Film Blog is more concerned with the casting of the film and particularly, the presence of a non-Caucasian Heathcliff:

Arnold was clearly unwilling to compromise on her vision: she declined to audition well-known actors in favour of open casting calls and at one point even scoured a Romany camp in search of her dark-skinned Heathcliff. Sticking with tradition is usually seen as the safe option as far as adaptations are concerned, but Arnold has actually taken a calculated risk by casting an unknown actor in such a high-profile role.
Arnold deserves praise for taking such a positive step into territory where many others have refused to tread. But will the first mixed-race Heathcliff be hailed as a landmark move by filmgoers? Or will audiences continue to accept the film industry's whitewashing of minority ethnic characters at face value?

The List interviews Kaya Scodelario:

The ghostly Cathy is one of literature’s quintessential tormented women. Did you feel under pressure playing such a well-known gothic heroine?
‘I didn’t read the book before shooting the film, and I didn’t watch any of the previous film or TV versions. Andrea said not to drive myself crazy worrying about how somebody did the role 20 years ago. We weren’t even given full scripts, just the lines the day before. Once it came out that the actor playing Heathcliff, James Howson, was black, I realised what a big thing the story was. I realised that this version was going to divide people, but I’d much rather do something that gets people thinking and stirs things up a bit.’
As a 19-year-old in 2011, how did you connect to the 19th century Cathy?
‘To me the story isn’t the fairytale romance that people perceive it to be. It shows that love is a kind of disease. Actually, going to this tiny village in Yorkshire in the middle of nowhere and being surrounded by the moors and the fog and the mud and the rain and the snow really helped in understanding how the teenage Cathy would feel love so intensely. I felt her sense of being trapped in a world where she either marries the wealthy Edgar or runs off with this wild boy Heathcliff. I didn’t want to judge her. Deep down she knows that Heathcliff will kill her, in the sense that her love for him will drive her crazy.’ (Tom Dawson)

The Guardian also recommends We Are Three Sisters by Blake Morrison, now in Richmond. By the way, don't forget that you can buy a copy of the script with a tempting special offer if you are a reader of this blog.

The Welwyn Hatfield Times recommends Jane Eyre 2011 for Halloween:

As if that wasn’t enough, you can also go a bit Gothic and catch a visit from the original Madwoman in the Attic, when Jane Eyre (PG) is shown on Saturday, October 29.

Digital Spy interviews Mia Wasikowska and Cary Fukunaga who says about Judi Dench:

"There was no ego or 'this is how it's done' attitude. It was like, this [is] the characters how we see it, this is happening before, this is happening after and she would do it. I'd have maybe a little adjustment but she was pretty much delivering the gold." (Mayer Nissim)

The film is reviewed in the Italian media: Il Sussidiario, CineZapping. Nieuwsblad (Belgium) talks about the screening of the film at the Gent Film Festival. In Poland, an interview with Mia Wasikowska in Wisokie Obkasy and articles in Olsztyn Gazeta, SE.pl, Plejada, students.pl

The Lodi News-Sentinel talks about zombies and interviews Sarah Juliet Lauro, an English professor at the University of California, author of  Better Off Dead: The Evolution of the Zombie as Post-Human:

“I don’t really know why I was pulled to this topic,” Lauro said in a phone interview Wednesday. “I think it’s because I grew up in Africa (through her father’s job). She referred to the novel “Jane Eyre,” which has a character who is very zombie like, before anyone knew about zombies. The character happens to be from she happens to be Creole, the same island where the zombies were reported to be. (Ross Farrow)

There's this quite stupid comment on NYULocal:

Reading books, for the most part, makes you look intelligent. The line between intelligence and pretentiousness, however, is thin. If you’re just starting a classic, don’t take the book in public. Everyone can get through the first chapter of Wuthering Heights, but few people finish it. This doesn’t stop me from telling people every year that I’m just saving it for the winter. (Olivia Loving)

Few people finish it?

Tessa Hadley reviews the new biography of Virginia Woolf by Alexandra Harris and makes the following comment in The Guardian:

Writing a little introductory book about Woolf – a "first port of call for those new" to her, and "an enticement to read more" – why would one begin by foregrounding the life rather than the writing? Perhaps Woolf is becoming one of those authors – like the Brontës – whose work can't be untangled any longer, in our collective mythology, from her own story.

On the box lists Ralph Fiennes's Heathcliff in Wuthering Heights 1992 as one of his best villains:

In 1992 Fiennes took on the role of the unrelenting and contemptuous Heathcliff and played him in all of his bastardly glory. Heathcliff targets all those that he felt did him wrong, ruining their lives and the lives of their children just because the girl he liked wouldn’t marry him. He is the worst kind of jerk, a rich one. (Peter Chawaga)

Página 12 (Argentina) talks about the actress Rachel Elisabeth Fénix and mentions how she was the inspiration behind Villette's Vashti:

Charlotte Brontë pensó en Rachel cuando escribió su novela Villette (dicen que Brontë enloqueció cuando la vio actuar en Londres). (Marisa Avigliano) (Translation)

La Opinión de Málaga (Spain) thinks that the French politics is like Wuthering Heights:

Les confieso que adoro las novelas decimonónicas inglesas pero es que, ante las intrigas y líos de alcoba de los líderes políticos franceses palidece hasta Cumbres Borrascosas. (Isabel Vicente) (Translation)

Persinsala (Italy) reviews the performances of Tomaso Sherman and Patrizia La Fonte's Ellen Dean:

L’ambiente raccolto creato per l’allestimento di Ellen Dean facilita l’ascolto. L’eccellente interpretazione di Patrizia La Fonte e Stefano Gragnani riporta in scena l’intimità del rito ripristinando forme dialogiche tipiche del teatro greco. Stefano Gragnani sembra parte del coro, spettatore, un attore brechtiano.
L’effetto sonoro della tempesta riecheggia a più riprese all’interno dello spettacolo e risulta talvolta fastidioso, ma non riesce comunque a scalfire l’attenzione dello spettatore, immerso pienamente in un contesto storico ricostruito con cura e dovizia di dettagli, anche nei costumi di pregiata manifattura. (Germana Marchioni) (Translation)

Paperblog (Italy) has posted several posts about Jane Eyre: 1, 2, 3 and 4.

День (Ukraine) interviews the writer Marina Lewycka who says how at the beginning she tried to imitate the Brontës among others:

Все время до этого я носила в своем сознании идею, как писатель должен писать: очень серьезно, имитируя великих писателей прошлого. Я выбрала своими образцами Джейн Остин, Шарлотту Бронте, даже Льва Толстого, но, конечно, если вы пытаетесь так писать сегодня, это выглядит немного старомодно. (Дмитрий ДЕСЯТЕРИК) (Translation)

The Renton Reporter publishes about a local production of The Mystery of Irma Vep; Macomb Daily Tribune makes a reference to Jane Slayre in an article about mash-ups; History and Other Things posts about Patrick Brontë and ThinkerViews about Villette; The Books of My Life has not enjoyed Jane Eyre; From Krypton with Love reviews Wuthering Heights; She's Got the Book posts a review of Jane Eyre 2011; the Anne Rice YouTube channel posts a video of the writer visiting the Brontë Parsonage this October; Le Nouvel Observateur (France) remembers the cameo of Roland Barthes as Thackeray in Les Soeurs Brontë 1979;

And we cannot end this post without quoting this unforgettable tweet by @theucannyalex:

Someone has just asked me for (and I quote) "Wuthering Heights, by Jane Eyre"